On April 10, 2019, I read and judged
the last oral part of a spelling bee at Chung-De Middle School this afternoon. I have officiated at a number of spelling bees in Taiwan middle schools but this one was the worst, for me and the young participants.
The organizers of this spelling bee made up their own rules.Their rules implied a student who incorrectly spelled was immediately replaced by a substitute if the sub could spell the word correctly; a dozen times I had to read the same word and sentences, twice.
They had me standing in the front of a full
gymnasium surrounding around fifty classmates form various classes on stools wearing
their class shirt with cardboard whiteboards on their laps with a tissue and
marker in their hands I read the word, sentence (without the errors) and word
again before some cockamamie music timed them ten seconds. They didn’t turn the
air-conditioner on until well into the program and I was glad they did.
When they narrowed the pool down to
five, the children were lined up in front of the two desks near the stage. I
had stood the entire two hours as instructed but a few female teachers took the
liberty to sit behind those desks for a better view. I was asked to read the
word and sentence and have the finalists spell the word out-loud into a
microphone, some clearly some not. One girl spelling “exercise” I had to ask
twice and get closer to hear. The third time she said the word, she spelled it
correctly but one teacher behind the desk begged to differ and commented that the
girl had spelled it incorrectly. “Not to my ears,” I said,
but she insisted to
have her way. I told her that she could be the judge if she wanted and stepped
back to the side of the finalists. I asked the MC if he wanted me to judge as
well as read and he looked befuddled and waved me on. To the next two students
who spelled correctly I commented, “It sounded good to me.” It was then that it
seemed to me the teachers behind the desk were asked by the organizer to leave and
off they went to the side. I finished judging the students spelling with no
suggestions from the peanut gallery. I was not apologized to. A few students
seemed to snicker at their wise-ass teacher. The MC was trouble enough jumping
around the list he gave me choose words out-of-order that he thought the
contests should spell.
I was treated like a cog in their whims and not given professional consideration . So often it happens in Taiwan schools that the foreigners asked to officiate at an event are window dressing and not respected. Though some schools do have the children's interests at heart, there is no reason to invite a foreigner unless it adds to the event's reputation. This one did not. I will not do a spelling bee at that school again if they ask me.
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.
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